Below is an annotated list of children's literature for the elementary classroom. The books are organized by the Six Elements of Social Justice Curriculum Design (Picower, 2007). It is based on work by pre-service teachers at Montclair State University. They have read and reviewed these books and provided insights into how they can be used in K-5 settings.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Social Justice: How You Can Make a Difference

Summary: This book is about the steps in which to take before
taking action. The five chapters are titled: Free to Make a Difference,
Getting Started, Learn All About It, Planning, and Take Action.
Throughout the book it gives you pointers and ideas on what to do to
further your knowledge of your cause you want help with. The book also,
has certain pages called Action Spotlight that gives you a brief story of kids
who have taking action to their cause to make a difference in the world.

Element 6: The reason I picked this book
for element six is because the main goal of the book is to teach students the
way in which to think about their cause and how to go about planning their
steps into taking social action. This book also represents element six
with the examples shown of students like them making difference in the world
and showing them that taking action is possible for their age.

Activity: An activity I would have
students do after reading this book is to get into groups of three or four
and to come up with a cause they believe would be worth taking action for to
help their community out. Then the
students will follow the steps given from the book by researching their cause
finding out everything they can, make a plan to take action, then take
action. (This activity cannot be done in
one day, but maybe be broken up)